Antarctic ice melting faster

Antarctic ice melting faster

Elijah Vega
|
14 June, 2018, 06:09

Spread out over the roughly 360 million square kilometers of Earth's oceans, that accounts to over 7 millimetres of sea level rise - directly from the additional volume of water. Their results - known formally as the "Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise" (IMBIE) - were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Changes in global sea level, from 1992 to 2017, due to contributions from the Antarctic ice sheet.

"We appear to be on a pathway to substantial ice-sheet loss in the decades ahead, with longer-term consequences for enhanced sea level rise".

Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica is melting at an alarming rate. But what concerns scientists is the balance of how much snow and ice accumulates in a given year versus the amount that is lost.

"According to our analysis, there has been a steep increase in ice losses from Antarctica during the past decade, and the continent is causing sea levels to rise faster today than at any time in the past 25 years", he added.

An global team of polar scientists found that melting in Antarctica has jumped sharply from an average of 76 billion tonnes per year prior to 2012, to around 219 billion tonnes each year between 2012 and 2017.

In Antarctica, it's mostly warmer water causing the melt.

Overall between 1992 and 2017, Antarctica's ice sheet lost 3 trillion tons of ice - enough water to cover Texas to a depth of almost 13 feet, scientists calculated.

East Antarctica has sometimes been a focus of attention for people who deny the science of global warming.

"The fate of Antarctica, the fate of Greenland, is the fate of Miami", she said.

According to NASA, the data for this study was gathered by over a dozen different satellites - NASA's ICESat mission, the NASA/German Aerospace Center twin GRACE satellites, the European Space Agency's Envisat and CryoSat-2 satellites, the German Aerospace Center TerraSAR-X satellite, the European Union's Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites, the Italian Space Agency's COSMO-SkyMed satellite constellation, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Advanced Land Observatory System, and the Canadian Space Agency's RADARSAT-1 and RADARSAT-2 satellites.

They also said governments should take note. "And we find that by combining all of the available measurements we can iron out the problems that individual techniques have".

"The increasing mass loss that they're finding is really worrying, particularly looking at the West Antarctic, the area that's changing most rapidly and it's the area that we're most anxious about, because it's below sea level, " said Christine Dow, a glaciologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada who was not involved in the research.

The high seas are getting even higher, and all that water is largely coming from a colossal Antarctic ice melt that has gotten much worse in recent years.

Shepherd and his team ran similar calculations five years ago, using 20 years of data, but were unable to say much except that Antarctica seemed to be losing mass at a steady rate.

This study will help researchers measure the impacts of climate change and predict future rates of ice loss. This increase has been very small compared to the losses recorded from the rest of the ice sheet, though.

"We depend upon the satellite measurements to not only tell us how the ice sheets respond but also to make these calculations to sea-level contribution", Shepherd said.

Worryingly, the paper demonstrates that the rate of ice loss has tripled in recent times. The latter is increasingly being viewed as posing a potential planetary emergency, because of its enormous size and its role as a gateway that could allow the ocean to someday access the entirety of West Antarctica, turning the marine-based ice sheet into a new sea.

"They're melting the ice at rates that far exceed anything that would change in the air, and these are forces that you can't reverse easily".

Recommended

Footage of the incident shows Mr Bishop dancing with a crowd around him when he suddenly thrusts himself backward onto his hands. Additional charges could also be filed after an analysis of Bishop's blood alcohol content are finished, the DA said.

Some experts said Kim's city tour suggests that North Korea and the US had narrowed their differences ahead of the summit. There will not be a repeat of "flimsy agreements" made between previous U.S. administrations and North Korea, U.S.

Several exchanges have been using Tether as a way to quickly facilitate fund transfers, replacing the need to depend on banks. Or, in layman's terms: to counteract price declines, it looks like somebody at Bitfinex is using Tether to buy bitcoin.

No guidelines are given for children under age 2, but the 2020-2025 edition edition is expected to include recommendations. A promising strategy for reducing kids' sugar intake is to get them used to healthy eating before they turn two.

Canada will host men's World Cup matches for the first time, while Mexico gets its first taste of the event since 1986. The US hosted the World Cup in 1994, while the tournament was held twice in Mexico (1970 and 1986).

Although the game is free to play, developers have raked in cash from in-game purchases as players try to boost their performance. Just days ago, a nine-year-old girl was admitted into rehab after playing Fortnitefor so long that she wet herself.

We're hopeful that we can achieve that in the two and half years", he said, adding that there is "a lot of work left to do". Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to slam the media for its insistence that the USA gave up too much in its deal with Kim.

Pro-EU lawmakers, however, welcomed it as a signal that the government was moving towards ruling out a hardline "no deal" Brexit. But it's also worth recalling that the wording of his amendment was later deemed so weak that the Lords had to beef it up.

There was better news for Brazil , however, as star forward Neymar was added to coach Tite's main formation on Thursday. But Neymar returned to form in fine style last week, scoring at Anfield after coming off the bench against Croatia.

The Vivoactive 3 Music will set you back £299.99, making it an extra £20 for the luxury of music support over the Vivoactive 3. Both earn their name thanks to the built-in storage for 500 songs that you can take with you on a run, no phone needed.

Meghan showed off her polished but bold wardrobe choice today at the Trooping The Colour ceremony in London with her new husband. We will remind that soon the Royal family will be a holiday - marry the younger grandson of the Queen , Prince Harry .

Moreover, an attack would sink the negotiations now being brokered by the new, US-supported UN Special Envoy to Yemen. The three-year stalemated war has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced more than three million.

Sony E3 2018: God of War New Game Plus
During an interview with GamingBolt back in May, Barlog said that; " New Game Plus is something I wanted so badly, right? ". No idea when this will be released, how much it will be priced or what the new game most will include.

No sex with guests, MP warns Russian women
Unsurprisingly this lawmaker has made similarly prudish comments before, once criticizing the crop top of a local journalist. Pletneva previously criticised the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment, tentatively spreading in Russian Federation .

Singapore: Security tight ahead of Trump-Kim summit
The two leaders discussed bilateral relations as well as the summit and the recent positive developments in the Korean Peninsula. Traffic was held up in the steamy midday sun and scores of bystanders were penned in by police when Trump went to meet Lee.

John Boyega tells Star Wars fans to stop harassing cast
So in George Lucas' mind, the stories of Star Wars have always been tales relayed to us by these creatures called the Whills . He's attempting to explain the origins and goal of the sci-fi world he created by giving the universe its own creation myth.

Tyson fury got a unusual victory after returning to the ring
Just boxing again was an achievement for Fury, whose life span out of control after ending Klitschko's nine-and-half year reign. Fury believes he will soon be ready to take on the likes of heavyweight champions Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder.

Opportunity Rover Is Stuck in a 'Dark, Perpetual Night'
The storm is covering an area of 14 million square miles, or a quarter of the Red Planet, NASA said today in a mission update . Opportunity was in remarkably good health going into the storm, Callas said, with only an arthritic joint in its robotic arm.

Batting better now: Nair
Afghanistan cricket team attained a status of a Test nation recently and the match will mark their debut in the Test cricket. I am not thinking too far ahead and obviously the A series is in England , so the preparations are going on well.

Private sector days off for Eid Al Fitr have been announced
Committee head Religious Affairs Minister Matior Rahman will chair the meeting, the foundation said in a statement on Wednesday. The ministry's circular means private sector workers with a Friday/Saturday weekend could potentially receive no extra days off.